Category: Uncategorized

Hollywood has never lacked war stories. But it has often lacked veteran storytellers telling them.

For years, military narratives on screen have gravitated toward spectacle or trauma. Either elite raids and explosions, or the aftermath: PTSD, divorce, isolation. What gets squeezed out is the middle ground — bureaucracy, boredom and dark humor — where most service members actually live.

Three veterans now working in television say that changes when people who have worn the uniform are inside the writers’ room, shaping the story from page one.

Greg Cope White, a Marine veteran and longtime television writer, built a decades-long career after leaving active duty. His memoir, “The Pink Marine,” later became the basis for the Netflix coming-of-age series “Boots,” about a closeted gay teenager enlisting in the Marine Corps in the ’90s.

Veterans are often misunderstood in writers’ rooms, White told Military Times in a recent interview.

“One of the things veterans might fear about going into the writers’ room is that that’s all the experience people are going to want from them,” he said. “Just give me the military stuff and shut up.

“That’s not what I have found at all.”

For White, the value of veterans extends far beyond accuracy. “Our worldview is instantly expanded the day we enlisted,” he said. “We saw things, and we’re exposed to people and situations that a normal college-age student wouldn’t be exposed to.”

That exposure influences tone and informs how characters handle pressure. It shapes what feels authentic when a unit fractures or rallies on screen.

When working on “Boots,” authenticity mattered, but not as trivia. “You don’t want something like someone in their dress blues with scruff. That’s going to take a lot of people out right there,” White said.

For “Boots” story editor Megan Ferrell Burke, a Marine veteran who served from 2007 to 2011 and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a direct air support officer, authenticity debates often collide with visual storytelling.

Hollywood is a visual medium, noted Burke, who, after leaving the Corps, worked her way through assistant roles on “Army Wives,” served as a writers’ assistant on the World War II drama “Manhattan” and was staffed on “Outlander.” Sometimes what is correct is not what reads best on camera.

In “Boots,” for example, recruits were scripted to sit on their packs during a break, as they would in real life. On set, production placed them on logs.

“In any sort of universe, recruits would not be sitting on logs and talking,” Burke said. “But who cares? It’s so much better visually.”

For her, the issue is not perfection; it is intention. “I’m very okay with being inaccurate,” she said. “I just want to know when we’re being inaccurate, and I want to make that choice actively.”

Burke said she braced for backlash from veteran viewers over creative choices in “Boots,” including decisions about timeline accuracy. Instead, she found that many viewers accepted the show’s choices once they understood they were deliberate.

Over her 15 years in the industry, Burke said she has seen shifts in how military stories are framed. Early portrayals often defaulted to stoic archetypes. Later, she said, many projects focused almost exclusively on trauma.

“If you look out on the landscape and look for the stories of well-adjusted veterans, they’re a little bit harder to come by,” she said.

Burke does not dismiss PTSD narratives. “It is incredibly important to advocate for the very real experiences of service members dealing with trauma,” she said. But she believes the picture is incomplete.

“I feel like I’m the best version of myself because of the experience that I had,” she said.

Joshua Katz, a Navy veteran who served from 1999 to 2003 as a gunner’s mate and missile technician, entered the industry through multiple avenues, including stunt work, tactical consulting and writers’ room support. He worked as a showrunner’s assistant on the CBS sitcom “United States of Al” and later founded Katzmar Tactical Consulting with his spouse, also a Navy veteran.

Katz offered a more direct assessment of Hollywood’s priorities.

“They care about one thing, and that’s making a profit,” he said.

In his experience, veteran status may help secure a meeting, but it does not guarantee advancement. “It will never be because you’re a veteran,” he said. “It opens the door, but it doesn’t necessarily push you through it.”

Still, Katz credited certain showrunners with fostering supportive environments and taking veteran perspectives seriously when storylines demanded it.

He also pointed to story gaps he believes remain underexplored.

“You don’t see below decks,” he said of Navy life. “It’s almost always from an officer’s perspective.”

He would like to see more character-driven stories set in military environments without defaulting to combat or scandal. He also cited the VA hospital as a compelling setting where veterans from different eras intersect.

Across all three writers, humor emerged as a defining difference. Veterans understand that laughter often exists alongside stress, not in spite of it.

“It’s the only way I can tell my story,” White said of using comedy to frame his experience.

Humor, he argued, allows audiences unfamiliar with military life to enter the world without being overwhelmed. “There’s nothing more hilarious than that frailty of the human condition,” he said.

For those considering the leap from the uniform to the writers’ room, none of the three offered easy encouragement.

“It is not a career for the faint of heart,” Burke said. “The good times are great, and the bad times are really hard.”

White urged writers to focus on craft. “Write the story you want to tell,” he said, rather than chasing what seems marketable.

Katz emphasized persistence and preparation. “You’ve got to have the writing sample to go with it,” he said. “It’s never going to be just because you’re a veteran.”

When veterans become writers, war stories shift. The story moves toward lived ambiguity, and service is not reduced to a single narrative.

The difference is not cosmetic. It is tonal. And audiences, especially those who have served, can tell.

Long before cardboard boxes filled with frozen gel packs and prepackaged ingredients started appearing on suburban porches, the U.S. military had already solved the problem of feeding people who could not make it home for dinner.

The Meal, Ready-to-Eat, better known as the MRE, was designed for war. It had to survive heat, cold, impact and time. It had to deliver calories and consistency in places where kitchens did not exist. And it had to do all of that at scale.

Sound familiar?

Today’s meal-delivery industry, from subscription kits to fully prepared microwavable trays, operates on many of the same principles: Portion control, modular packaging and optimized logistics. Veterans who open a cardboard box filled with premeasured ingredients often recognize the parallels immediately.

The evolution of military rations shows just how deliberate that system became. From older field staples to modern retort pouches, MREs were engineered to balance durability and nutrition. A look back at MREs through the years illustrates how packaging and contents changed to meet operational demands. Meals had to withstand long storage and rough transport while still delivering predictable fuel.

That predictability is central.

Each MRE is structured around caloric requirements and mission profiles. A standard menu includes an entree, side, snack, dessert, beverage powder and accessory packet. Nothing is random. It is a calculated intake designed to support performance.

Modern meal-delivery companies market the same precision. Protein totals are highlighted. Calorie counts are featured prominently. Macro breakdowns are listed like briefing slides. For service members who once identified meals by menu number rather than flavor description, the emphasis on data feels familiar.

Behind the scenes, the logistics mirror each other even more closely. Feeding deployed troops requires a supply chain that can move millions of individually packaged meals across continents. As recently as last year, the Department of Defense refined packaging dimensions, pallet configurations and distribution systems to reduce waste and maximize efficiency. Those lessons now underpin commercial food distribution networks that ship insulated boxes nationwide on strict timelines.

Inside the development process, the parallels become even clearer. Military food scientists test taste, texture and shelf life inside controlled environments before a menu ever reaches a unit. A visit to the kitchen where MREs are created shows how rigorously meals are evaluated for stability and performance. The civilian meal kit industry uses similar controlled testing to ensure consistency across thousands of shipments.

Convenience may be the most obvious link. MREs were built for speed. Open. Heat if you can. Eat if you cannot. No dishes, no prep, no grocery run. The civilian market reframed that efficiency as lifestyle optimization: 10-minute dinners with minimal cleanup and reduced food waste.

There is also a psychological component. Field rations were never just about calories; they provided routine. In austere environments, opening a sealed meal at a predictable time created a small anchor in an otherwise unstable day. Modern marketing leans on the same promise: reliability, dinner handled and one less decision to make.

Of course, today’s meal kits are designed for aesthetics and convenience, not survival in a combat zone. No one is building a subscription box around instant coffee and wheat bread snacks.

Still, the blueprint is unmistakable. Long before venture capital discovered the efficiency of meal delivery, the military had already tested the model under far harsher conditions.

For veterans, the comparison is less surprising than ironic. What once arrived in a case bound for a forward operating base now shows up with a friendly logo and a discount code.

For decades, cigarettes were as common in uniform as a canteen and a helmet liner.

In World War II, tobacco was not treated as a vice; it was a comfort item. Cigarettes were packed into rations as morale boosters, something that could steady nerves between missions, the Imperial War Museums note. The image of a soldier lighting up in a muddy trench or on the deck of a ship became inseparable from the mythology of the American warfighter. The phrase “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” became a broader cultural idiom, according to the Army Historical Foundation.

That normalization lasted for generations. Smoking was woven into daily military life. A cigarette break punctuated patrols and long nights on guard duty. The smoke pit became a place where rank blurred slightly, and information flowed freely. For young troops far from home, nicotine offered routine in environments defined by uncertainty.

But the same institution that once distributed cigarettes eventually had to reckon with the consequences.

As medical research sharpened the link between tobacco use and long-term health problems, the Department of Defense shifted its posture. Smoking inside military facilities was banned in 1994, and recruits arriving at basic training found tighter restrictions around tobacco use than their predecessors.

In 2016, the Pentagon moved to eliminate discounted tobacco sales in on-base exchanges, raising prices to match civilian markets in an effort to remove financial incentives.

Despite that shift, nicotine use has not disappeared; it has adapted. A recent report found that soldiers are significantly more likely to use modern nicotine pouches than civilians, underscoring how quickly habits evolve inside the ranks.

Today’s service members are less likely to be seen with a cigarette and more likely to carry a vape or a can of tobacco-free nicotine pouches, which have been linked to oral and dental health issues and cardiovascular disease risk. Marketed as cleaner, smokeless and discreet, these products fit easily into field environments and office settings alike. They also sidestep some of the social stigma attached to traditional smoking.

The military has responded by expanding resources for quitting tobacco. Tricare covers tobacco cessation counseling and prescription medications, while military treatment facilities offer nicotine replacement therapy such as patches and gum. The Defense Department also promotes health coaching programs as part of its broader force health protection strategy.

Still, anyone who has served knows the smoke pit has not vanished. It remains a gathering place, a bond that only those who don the uniform can truly understand. It is where junior enlisted troops vent about leadership, where NCOs gauge morale and where small frustrations surface before they grow larger. In many units, stepping outside for a smoke remains one of the few unofficial breaks in a tightly structured day.

That cultural role complicates enforcement. Leaders must balance individual autonomy with readiness standards. Smoking and nicotine use are tied to higher injury rates, slower recovery times and long-term healthcare costs, all of which affect deployability. At the same time, troops operate under sustained stress, long hours and frequent moves. For some, nicotine functions as a coping mechanism that is accessible and socially reinforced.

The military’s relationship with tobacco reflects a broader evolution. What began as a morale staple, packed alongside rations, has become a regulated health concern measured against mission impact. The products may look different in 2026 than they did in 1945, but the underlying tension remains.

LOS ANGELES — Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor of matchless versatility and dedication whose classic roles included the intrepid consigliere of the first two “Godfather” movies and the over-the-hill country music singer in “Tender Mercies,” has died at age 95.

Duvall died “peacefully” at his home Sunday in Middleburg, Virginia, according to an announcement from his publicist and from a statement posted on his Facebook page by his wife, Luciana Duvall.

“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” Luciana Duvall wrote. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented.”

The bald, wiry Duvall didn’t have leading man looks, but few “character actors” enjoyed such a long, rewarding and unpredictable career, in leading and supporting roles, from an itinerant preacher to Josef Stalin. Beginning with his 1962 film debut as Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Duvall created a gallery of unforgettable portrayals. They earned him seven Academy Award nominations and the best actor prize for “Tender Mercies,” which came out in 1983. He also won four Golden Globes, including one for playing the philosophical cattle-drive boss in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” a role he often cited as his favorite.

In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts.

He had been acting for some 20 years when “The Godfather,” released in 1972, established him as one of the most in-demand performers of Hollywood. He had made a previous film, “The Rain People,” with Francis Coppola, and the director chose him to play Tom Hagen in the mafia epic that featured Al Pacino and Marlon Brando among others. Duvall was a master of subtlety as an Irishman among Italians, rarely at the center of a scene, but often listening and advising in the background, an irreplaceable thread through the saga of the Corleone crime family.

“Stars and Italians alike depend on his efficiency, his tidying up around their grand gestures, his being the perfect shortstop on a team of personality sluggers,” wrote the critic David Thomson. “Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of ‘The Godfather?’”

In another Coppola film, “Apocalypse Now,” Duvall was wildly out front, the embodiment of deranged masculinity as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who with equal vigor enjoyed surfing and bombing raids on the Viet Cong. Duvall required few takes for one of the most famous passages in movie history, barked out on the battlefield by a bare-chested, cavalry-hatted Kilgore: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body.

“The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like — victory.”

Coppola once commented about Duvall: “Actors click into character at different times — the first week, third week. Bobby’s hot after one or two takes.”

Honored, but still hungry

He was Oscar-nominated as supporting actor for “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” but a dispute over money led him to turn down the third Godfather epic, a loss deeply felt by critics, fans and “Godfather” colleagues. Duvall would complain publicly about being offered less than his co-stars.

Fellow actors marveled at Duvall’s studious research and planning, and his coiled energy. Michael Caine, who co-starred with him in the 2003 “Secondhand Lions,” once told The Associated Press: “Before a big scene, Bobby just sits there, absolutely quiet; you know when not to talk to him.” Anyone who disturbed him would suffer the well-known Duvall temper, famously on display during the filming of the John Wayne Western “True Grit,” when Duvall seethed at director Henry Hathaway’s advice to “tense up” before a scene.

Duvall was awarded an Oscar in 1984 for his leading role as the troubled singer and songwriter Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies,” a prize he accepted while clad in a cowboy tuxedo with Western tie. In 1998, he was nominated for best actor in “The Apostle,” a drama about a wayward Southern evangelist which he wrote, directed, starred in, produced and largely financed. With customary thoroughness, he visited dozens of country churches and spent 12 years writing the script and trying to get it made.

Among other notable roles: the outlaw gang leader who gets ambushed by John Wayne in “True Grit”; Jesse James in “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”; the pious and beleaguered Frank Burns in “M-A-S-H”; the TV hatchet man in “Network”; Dr. Watson in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”; and the sadistic father in “The Great Santini.”

“When I was doing ‘Colors’ in 1988 with Sean Penn, someone asked me how I do it all these years, keep it fresh. Well, if you don’t overwork, have some hobbies, you can do it and stay hungry even if you’re not really hungry,” Duvall told The Associated Press in 1990.

In his mid-80s, he received a supporting Oscar nomination as the title character of the 2014 release “The Judge,” in which he is accused of causing a death in a hit-and-run accident. More recent films included “Widows” and “12 Mighty Orphans.”

Ungifted in school, gifted on stage

Robert Selden Duvall grew up in the Navy towns of Annapolis and the San Diego area, where he was born in 1931. He spent time in other cities as his father, who rose to be an admiral, was assigned to various duties.

The boy’s experience helped in his adult profession as he learned the nuances of regional speech and observed the psyche of military men, which he would portray in several films.

Duvall reportedly used his Navy officer father as the basis for his portrayal of the explosive militarist in “The Great Santini,” based on the Pat Conroy novel. He commented in 2003: “My dad was a gentleman but a seether, a stern, blustery guy, and away a lot of the time.” Bobby took after his mother, an amateur actress, in playing a guitar and performing. He was a wrestler like his father and enjoyed besting kids older than himself.

He lacked the concentration for schoolwork and nearly flunked out of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. His despairing parents decided he needed something to keep him in college so he wouldn’t be drafted for the Korean War. “They recommended acting as an expedient thing to get through,” he recalled. “I’m glad they did.” He flourished in drama classes.

“Way back when I was in college,” Duvall told the AP in 1990, “there was a wonderful man named Frank Parker, who had been a dancer in World War I. We did a full-length mime play and I played a Harlequin clown. I really liked that.

“Then, I played an older guy in ‘All My Sons,’ and at one point I had this emotional moment, where this emotion was pouring out. Parker said at that moment he didn’t think acting can be carried any further than that. And this guy was a very critical guy. So I thought, at that moment at least, this is what I wanted to do.”

After two years in the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to finance his studies at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, hanging out with such other young hopefuls as Robert Morse, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. After a one-night performance in “A View From the Bridge,” Duvall began getting offers for work in TV series, among them “The Naked City” and “The Defenders.”

Between his high-paying jobs in major productions, Duvall devoted himself to directing personal projects: a documentary about a prairie family, “We’re Not the Jet Set”; a film about gypsies, “Angelo, My Love”; and “Assassination Tango,” in which he also starred.

Duvall had been a tango dancer since seeing the musical “Tango Argentina” in the 1980s and visited in Argentina dozens of times to study the dance and the culture. The result was the 2003 release about a hit man with a passion for tango.

His co-star was Luciana Pedraza, 42 years his junior, whom he married in 2005. Duvall’s three previous marriages — to Barbara Benjamin, Gail Youngs and Sharon Brophy — ended in divorce.

Former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas, who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary